The Globe’s authenticity is its USP, so don’t expect the air-conditioning, the plush seats and the expectant hush of the National Theatre some 20 minutes walk away along the Thames. There’s not quite Elizabethan levels of discomfort to endure, so no plague – well, not if you’ve had your jabs. It’s quite fun to roll with the open air vibe and wooden benches with poles in your eyeline like a Victorian football stadium or stand in the pit, looking up, like Baldrick in Season One. But does it need to be quite as much of an ordeal as my visit to the Troilus and Cressida Thursday matinee Read more ...

If you’re a Gen Zer, you’ve probably heard of Heartstopper’s Joe Locke. I’m pretty sure ATG’s Gen Xers in the back office had also heard of him, as tickets are priced up to and beyond £100 for a 100 minutes all-through, 10-years-old three-hander that would sit comfortably at the Arcola at less than half that price. It was telling that there were a fair few seats unoccupied at the matinee I attended.Rant over … but seriously guys, Theatre gets a bad rap on prices, often unfairly, and this doesn’t help. But if it definitely can’t justify £100 a pop, can it justify its lead-in price point, a Read more ...

In the framing device, a professor (Jonathan Guy Lewis) stands at a lectern and asks if anyone has had a supernatural experience. Somewhat to my suprise, up went my hand. In the cold winter of 1981/82, I lived in a house in Finchley. One morning, it had snowed overnight (I had barely seen a fall stick properly before) and, looking out of the French doors of the living room, I could see fresh human footprints leading from the tree at the bottom of the garden all the way up to those doors. There they stopped. Abruptly.The doors were locked off, ingress to the house impossible. So, too, Read more ...

The National’s latest production of Hamlet opens with a bang: a sureness of style, atmosphere and refreshing comedic effect, accompanied by a performer, Hiran Abeyeskera (The Father and the Assassin, Life of Pi), whose presence promises a night of sparky originality. What a pity, then, that this promise peters out, and an ambitious conceit ultimately fails to deliver. It’s one thing presenting Hamlet as an almost childlike clown, whose emotions are heightened even before he’s aware of the rot in Denmark, but to do so at the expense of the tragedy – of one of Shakespeare’s most Read more ...

It’s truly thrilling to see the Barbican embracing big concept long-form theatre again, seeking out productions that are as conceptually challenging as they are visually exhilarating. Last week, audiences were asked to understand the forces of globalisation that shaped a royal wedding dress in the Théâtre National de Strasbourg’s multimedia tour de force, Lacrima.This week the pioneering Polish director Łukasz Twarkoswki brings his much feted Rohtko (the misspelling is deliberate), to investigate a real-life forgery scandal in which New York gallery, Knoedler & Co, sold almost 40 faked Read more ...

Like fellow New Yorker, Lee Miller, Lee Krasner changed her given name, the better to be accepted into what she called "The Boys Club" of 20th century Modern Art. Like Miller, she was known more for her working and romantic partnership with a major artist – for Man Ray, read Jackson Pollock. And like Miller, Lee Krasner is now belatedly acknowledged as a major artist in her own right – though she does not have a solo Tate show, as Miller does this Autumn (at least not yet). We open on her working in her Long Island studio, surrounded by her paintings, canvases that you can’t quite place – Read more ...

An opening video montage presents us with a rogues' gallery of powerful men who have done bad things. Plenty of the usual suspects appear to stomach-churning effect, but no ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy, sentenced last week to five years in prison by the usually tolerant French. So the problem certainly hasn’t gone away with the Clintons, Weinsteins and they’re ilk. We all know the “power corrupts…” quote, so perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised and, maybe, we should be a little wary of vesting so much power in such men – that is, most men.Duke Vincentio, no stranger to sins of the flesh Read more ...

Star casting has, since the pandemic, done much to restore the fortunes of commercial theatre. And, when they can pull off a similar deal, the same applies to subsidised venues. If the downside is that many smaller institutions get left behind, the upside is clearly visible all over the West End.The latest stars to join Alicia Vikander and Andrew Lincoln in The Lady from the Sea or Brendan Gleeson in The Weir, are national treasures Stephen Fry and Olly Alexander in this West End transfer of the hit National Theatre revival of Oscar Wilde’s 1895 masterpiece, The Importance of Being Read more ...

In a fair few bars around the world tonight, bands will be playing “That’s The Way (I Like It)”, “Give It Up” and so many more of KC and the Sunshine Band’s bangers. They’ve filled dancefloors for half a century and Harry Wayne Casey (KC to you and me) has a claim to having written the first ever disco hit with George McCrae’s “Rock Your Baby” – Benny and Bjorn’s inspiration for “Dancing Queen” no less!He’s a significant figure in the much undervalued history of pop music. His songbook is a strong foundation for a musical. All you need to add are great singers, great costumes and a great Read more ...

For the first part of Punch it feels as if you’re riding a roller coaster, watching the world speed and loop past as you see it from the perspective of a young man high on hormones and cocaine. He’s 19 years old and in perpetual motion as he zips in and out of the pubs of Nottingham in search of the next girl, the next dance beat, the next drugs hit.It looks as if he’s having the time of his life, but as everyone in the audience is aware, this is the night that will send shockwaves both through his life and through the lives of a family he’s never met. After a call from a mate saying that Read more ...

What would it be like to be driven by OCD urges into idolising Elon Musk and aspiring to be one of his tribe of tech bros? In his debut play, Will Lord, who has been diagnosed with OCD himself, has attempted to spell this out, with mixed results.The scene is a basement office stacked to ceiling height with old cardboard boxes and filing cabinets. At either end is a desk. The audience sits in two long rows in traverse, on either side of the space. Into it strides a ponytailed blonde woman in a white trouser suit who comes on like a fierce motivational speaker, the kind that can lead audiences Read more ...

So often the focus – in the coverage of a royal wedding – is the story of the woman wearing the bridal dress. While every fashion choice she makes will be scrutinised for the rest of her life, it is, nonetheless, she herself who will be mercilessly interrogated as the representative both of a nation’s ideals and its discontents.So it’s a refreshing departure that Caroline Guiela Nguyen’s ravishing, emotionally absorbing Lacrima puts its lens firmly on the dress. It’s a story that’s every bit as human as the princess herself as it reveals a whole ecosystem of workers and the pressures and Read more ...